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Topic: veggie drying question. (Read 4447 times)

Has anyone used a food dryer on garden veggies? - I'm thinking of doing that rather than canning to save shelf space and weight load on the shelves.I mean stuff like green beans and corn, we'll probably dry a bunch of blueberries for sure. I was wondering what you folks would recommend for drying, what would be OK and what I shouldn't bother with at all. I'd love to dry some watermelon but I figure I'd wind up with paper thin leather with barely any flavor.

Well I got to say I have never dehydrated veggies but we do beef jerky the Alton Brown way..... That's with a box fan and a few furnace filters!!! I know it sounds weird but it works GREAT!! I will have to try it out of fruit and veggies or maybe someone already has and can report. When I use the box fan way it takes right at 12 hrs to dry all the meat and it is wonderful.

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To bee or not to bee that is the question I wake up to answer that every morning...

Green beans I string on a thread and hang them up somewhere out of the sun to dry. Things like green peppers I slice and put in the food dehydrator or lay them out on cookie sheets in a low (120 to 150 F) oven.

You can dry virtually anything. Dried fruit, of course, is delisious as is. But anything dried can then be rehydrated and cooked the same as you do dry beans. Soak overnight and then cook.

We dehydrate lots of stuff. Watermelon is wonderful! Its like candy. Tons of flavor, since you are only taking the water out, all the flavor stays. I dont really bother with corn or green beans. Blueberries dry nice. Make sure you give them a nice lemon water bath first though. Same with potatoes and pears. I like drying onions , peppers, and mushrooms for dry soup mix. I also dry all of our herbs for use in tinctures and the kitchen. Same with hot peppers, we grow chili and habanero , dry them then grind for spicing. Ah yes, the Alton Brown method is actually what got us started. Now we have canning jars filled with dried stuff :)

the watermelon is actually a surprising answer. I'm gonna google the alton brown drying method. we have very high heat and humidity here so we'll probably need an active dryer of some kind. (I remember accidentally making apple chips when I lived out west.)

With Alton Brown look up his show Good Eats.... you wont be disappointed. :-D The idea behind the box fan is that its better to dry out meat with cool dry air vs over cooking it at low temps. he has a whole 30 min show on making beef jerky.

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To bee or not to bee that is the question I wake up to answer that every morning...

With Alton Brown look up his show Good Eats.... you wont be disappointed.

I absolutely love that show. Back when we still had TV, it was the only show I made it a point to drop what I was doing to watch.

Bee Happy, I neglected to mention. A nice way to be certain your food is actually dry is put it in a air tight bag in the freezer. Once its frozen, take it out and let it sit at room temp. If condensation appears on the inside of the bag, then it needs to go back in the dryer. On the very rare occasions I dry meats, I make this a must in the process. Safety first :)

I've dried hot peppers in my solar wax melter with the top cover propped up with a stick. It's a solar melter I made out of an ice chest with a plexiglass lid. It was an old metal coleman ice chest. I took the dried peppers and ground them in the coffee grinder for some great hot pepper powder! I did Jalapeno and Ancho peppers, and each has it's own hot flavor. Over time, the powder loses it's heat some, but that just makes the flavors come out a bit more.

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Sitting in the shade, drinking lemon aid.Enjoying the breeze while counting the bees.

My wife and i got in to dehydrating about a year and a half ago, and if u go to youtube there is a lady on there that has a series on drying all types of veggies and fruits. She also has a website www.dehydrate2store.com there is a huge amount of info on there it should answer all your questions.

You guy's are getting me in trouble with my wife. You just gave me another thing to do and that's to build a food dryer got most of the stuff in the shed but she says it's just another thing to spend money on. :-D

when the volcano ash causes crop failure next year, she'll be glad yo dried this years veggies!!

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.....The greatest changes occur in their country without their cooperation. They are not even aware of precisely what has taken place. They suspect it; they have heard of the event by chance. More than that, they are unconcerned with the fortunes of their village, the safety of their streets, the fate of their church and its vestry. They think that such things have nothing to do with them, that they belong to a powerful stranger called “the government.” They enjoy these goods as tenants, without a sense of ownership, and never give a thought to how they might be improved.....

You guy's are getting me in trouble with my wife. You just gave me another thing to do and that's to build a food dryer got most of the stuff in the shed but she says it's just another thing to spend money on. :-D

Are you talking about the box fan dehydrator? That's the cheepest one I have ever had. Tell her you are saving her money!! 8-)

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To bee or not to bee that is the question I wake up to answer that every morning...

If you have already built a hot box for starting seeds outdoors.. then you are 99% done for a solar dehydrator. Our hot box, we built with side vents for those random hot days in the spring. to use it for dehydrating.. just add more sun and a small fan. I find the fans out of my old computers to be more than sufficient when hooked up to a homemade solar panel. It makes two fans self regulating , more sun, the faster they go. I think the only thing we actually purchased for all of it was the black paint

I use my oven for all sorts of dehydrating. I make sure my pan is lined with parchment paper or use a broiler for slices. I heat the oven up to it's minimum (mines 250), kill the heat, and pop the sheet in. After the oven has cooled enough that the sheet is handlable with my bare hands, I give the stuff a shake, stir, flip, whatever and redistribute over the sheet as I heat my oven up to minimum again. Then the sheet goes back in, and dries/cools. I repeat as often as necessary to dry the stuff. I've used this method to dry all sorts of herbs, minced mushroom, garlic, and onion, citrus peels and zests, apple, pear, and tomato slices, small whole hot peppers, split jalapeno sized peppers. I've done shredded carrot, celery, and potato too. With delicate herbs, I've found it best to crack the oven door with a spoon during drying periods.

I'm too lazy to build one. I just bought a 10 shelf dehydrator. I'm waiting to get my next deer to try it out.

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"Listen to the mustn'ts, child. Listen to the don'ts. Listen to the shouldn'ts, the impossibles, the won'ts. Listen to the never haves, then listen close to me . . . Anything can happen, child. Anything can be"

"Listen to the mustn'ts, child. Listen to the don'ts. Listen to the shouldn'ts, the impossibles, the won'ts. Listen to the never haves, then listen close to me . . . Anything can happen, child. Anything can be"

Drying veggies and stuff is very good for you, easy to rehydrate and use later, takes up very little space. In our previous life before we moved, my Sister made a veggie salt, all her kids helped with the picking of so many different veggies. I think in the veggie salt there was at least 14 different kind of vegetables. We had a 10 tier plastic dehydrator that worked for a good part of the summer. Added some sea salt to the mixture and there was nothing on earth that tasted like it. She made about 6 gallons of product that summer. I still have some of the salt left, perhaps maybe a quart. It is now my turn this coming year to prepare the salt for our families, and this shall be done. I have time to garden this year coming, and garden I will. I have every intention of growing every last vegetable that we would ever eat -- and it is very exciting to me, as for the past two years the food gardening has been so limited with all the work with preparing our home for selling. I missed working the land as I used, so many years ago. Good luck with the dehydration, so many forms can be used, all with wonderful and beautiful success. Have that great, most wonderful day, with that same love and health. Cindi

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There are strange things done in the midnight sun by the men who moil for gold. The Arctic trails have their secret tales that would make your blood run cold. The Northern Lights have seen queer sights, but the queerest they ever did see, what the night on the marge of Lake Lebarge, I cremated Sam McGee. Robert Service